Panasonic's DMC-TZ1 performed well in our speed trials. Time from power up to capture its first image was a speedy 1.6 seconds, and time between subsequent shots measured 1.8 seconds without flash and a slightly more sluggish 2.6 seconds with flash enabled. Shutter lag was also fast: 0.5 second in high-contrast lighting and 1.2 seconds in low-contrast situations. The burst mode has three speed options; in its fastest, we were able to capture 5 low-quality (low compression) images at 3.1fps and 3 high-quality shots at 2.5fps.
There is no optical viewfinder, so you'll have to use the 2.5-inch LCD to frame your shots. Thankfully, the screen was easily visible even in bright sunlight. It also did a remarkable job of gaining up in low light while still maintaining a decent representation of colors, so you won't be left in the dark when shooting images in your favorite dimly lit dance club.
Automatic white balance produced extremely yellowish casts in images shot with our lab's tungsten lights. The Tungsten preset did a much better job, though, leaving a slightly warm cast that wasn't perfectly neutral but kept that tungsten feel alive. The manual white-balance setting did a good job of neutralizing colors.
Images from the Lumix DMC-TZ1 showed accurate, natural colors, with plenty of saturation. Plus, exposures were generally accurate, though it had a tendency to clip detail from the brightest portions of our field test images. Unfortunately, we also saw moiré in the finer details of our test images, which were noticeably soft and suffered from JPEG artifacts and fringing. More troubling, though, was that like a lot of Panasonic cameras, the DMC-TZ1 had a tough time keeping noise in check. Even at ISO 80, there were noticeable multicolor speckles throughout our test images, and ISO 100 looked very similar. At ISO 200, the noise grew worse with significant mottling in darker colors, and by ISO 400, noise obscured significant amounts of detail, though images may still be useful as 4x6-inch prints. By ISO 800, noise was so rampant that images were not fit to print.
Panasonic's Lumix DMC-TZ1 might have a big lens, an ergonomically pleasing design, and some cool features, but its image-quality issues should make you pause if you plan to make letter-size or larger prints. Snapshooters who want only 4x6 prints will probably do OK with this camera, but they should take a look at the competition, such as Kodak's EasyShare V610, or even a superzoom, such as Canon's PowerShot S3 IS.
Seconds (smaller is better)
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Typical shot-to-shot time | |
Time to first shot | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
Frames per second (larger is better)
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Typical continuous-shooting speed |
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